If Wishes Were Horses
by Mirrankei
Summary: A little girl makes a friend, who can create everything she's ever wanted. She wants cartoons. The rest of Cardiff isn't very happy about this. Torchwood to the rescue! ...if they can just figure out how to work around their unfortunate transformation...


It was raining, just slightly. The sky was gray and dismal, and water dripped from the sky onto the rooftops, which in turn drizzled down to the ground, mixed with dirt and rust and dead leaves.

Elizabeth sat on the kerb, sadly splashing her rain boots in a puddle, ignoring the water dropping down onto her. She sniffled a little, her gaze fixed out at the street.

She didn't look up when someone sat next to her.

_Are you alright_? the person said.

"I'm lost," Elizabeth said. "I can't find my mummy and daddy."

_I'm lost too,_ the person said, sounding very sad. _I don't know what to do. I think I've been damaged._

Elizabeth looked up then, turning to look at the stranger. Her face scrunched up in a little frown. "Mum says I'm too old for imaginary friends."

The stranger flickered a little, offended. _I'm not imaginary! _

"Oh." Elizabeth thought about that. "Well, do you want to be my friend anyway?"

She giggled as the little golden lights next to her flared delightedly._ I would love to!_

"My name's Elizabeth," Elizabeth said. "What's yours?"

_I don't have one._

"That's dumb. Everyone has a name."

_They do?_

"Duh."

_Will you give me one then?_

Elizabeth pondered. "How about Sparkle? Because you're all sparkly."

_Sparkle_, said Sparkle, mulling it over. _Sparkle. I like that!_

Elizabeth beamed, proud of herself. "What do you want to do?"

_I don't know,_ said Sparkle. _What do you like to do?_

"I dunno," Elizabeth said. "I like cartoons, I guess. I was watching TV on daddy's phone but the battery ran out." She held the phone up as evidence.

_What are cartoons?_

Elizabeth smiled, getting to her feet and wiping her raincoat off, feeling important. "I'll tell you!" she said, and started down the street, telling her new friend all about her favorite shows as she went.

"It's spreading," Toshiko said, staring at her computer in disbelief. "I still have no idea what it is, but it's definitely spreading out and getting stronger every minute."

"We've had calls and reports from all over town," Ianto added. "Machinery coming to life, wild animals and strange creatures in the streets, even the sky changing color."

"I know," Jack snarled over the phone, his voice coming in over the earpieces they both wore. "What do you expect me to do about it? We've been all over the place, fighting these stupid… whatever they are. I still can't get a sample, they just disappear as soon as they're down!"

"Screw that," they heard Gwen reply. Ianto could just imagine the two of them, running down the street, guns drawn, chasing the strange creature that had appeared suddenly in Pendefig Mall, and he smiled to himself. "I'm getting this damn sample if it kills me!"

"What's wrong with her?" Owen asked.

"The thing ate her wedding ring."

"It _ate_ my _wedding ring_!"

Owen snorted and even Tosh had to suppress a giggle.

"There it is!" Jack shouted suddenly.

Gwen snarled, and they heard her burst into a sprint with a vehement, "You are going DOWN, motherfu-" before the rest was drowned out by the distinctive sound of gunfire.

Owen raised an eyebrow at his companions. "Whose idea was it to give her a machine gun?"

The sounds faded out gradually.

"Gwen?" Jack said. "Where are you? Are you alright?"

"What happened?" Toshiko asked, worried by the sudden change in tone.

"The whole thing just collapsed in on itself," Jack said, panting as he ran. "On top of Gwen. There's this red stuff everywhere, sort of transparent, looks almost like - "

"STRAWBERRY JAM," Gwen said, making them all jump. She coughed a little before continuing. "It's everywhere, we don't even have to analyze it. I got a sample alright, it tastes just like strawberry jam."

"It _is_ strawberry jam," Jack said, sounding amazed.

"Jack," Owen said, "We all saw it on the CCTV. It had a giant eyeball and a mouth and hands and everything."

"Even so, this is definitely strawberry jam," Jack said. "I'm taking some back, we're gonna need a full analysis on this."

"You want me to do an autopsy on _jam_?"

They didn't have any time to rest when they got back to the Hub. Ianto immediately handed Jack the phone to be berated by the police and government officials in his place. Gwen, with wedding ring back in its rightful place, handed over the jar of jam to Owen, who spent about half an hour using whatever equipment he could to analyze it, before finally coming to the conclusion, "Yup, it's jam."

Gwen ran downstairs briefly to change out of her strawberry stained blouse. Her mobile rang just as she made it back up, and she answered, waving off Toshiko's beckons for the moment.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Gwen."

"Rhys, now's not really a good time, can I call you back?"

"The lorries are talking, Gwen."

She paused at that. "What do you mean? Did you leave the radio on?"

"No I did not leave the radio on, Gwen, I mean the lorries, the actual lorries, they're talking."

Gwen swallowed. "Well, what are they saying?"

"How should I know, most of them only speak bloody Japanese!"

"Japanese?"

"Yes and they - " he was cut off by a scream from somewhere in the background.

"Rhys?" Gwen said, already mentally preparing to grab her gun and the SUV and run off to his rescue. "Rhys, what's all that screaming?"

"Oh," Rhys said. "One of them's turned into a robot now."

"It's what?"

"Like in Transformers, you know? It just kind of reared up and rearranged itself and now it's a big robot."

Gwen was about to answer when Toshiko shouted something about finding the source of the energy. "Look, Rhys, are the robots doing anything? Are they hurting anybody?"

"Not really. It's just sort of standing around for now. Looks a little confused."

"Do you have anyone there who can speak Japanese?"

"Who can - well, yeah, I guess, I think Ken can. But Gwen!"

"Rhys, We're doing our best to put a stop to all of this, but we have to focus on the source or we'll be spread too thin. Try and talk to the robots, reason with them, if anything happens, call me right back, okay? Love you."

She hung up on his sputtering and ran to join the others at Tosh's desk.

"You found something?"

"I think so," Tosh said, pointing at a map on her screen. "All of these incidents started happening at about the same time, and at the same time as that, the Rift's been going crazy, it's releasing energy all over."

"So you think this is all one event?" Ianto asked.

"I sure hope it is," Jack said. "Otherwise we're gonna be busy for weeks."

"In any case, I think I can find the center of the incidents, and that will be where the source is. By tracing the energy's movements - "

"Do it," Jack said.

Toshiko typed, too quickly for Gwen to make out, and the screen changed again, showing all the energy flowing about the city as well as points marked out with timestamps of when the incidents were reported. Gwen frowned, reading them to herself. Here a talking dog, there a flood of ice cream, there the jam creature, three separate reports of flying pigs…

"Oh," Toshiko said.

"What?"

"Did you figure it out?"

"Um," Tosh said. "Yes, I think. But it appears to be moving."

"Moving where?"

"Right above us," she said, "And the energy wave is coming straight for us."

"Oh," Jack said, and looked uneasily at the ceiling. "Well that's not good."

"Don't we have, I don't know, shields or something?" Gwen asked. "Something to protect us?"

"In theory," Jack said. He turned swiftly to Toshiko. "Can you strengthen them? Divert energy or something? We're not gonna get through a point blank blast unscathed."

Tosh raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "I cannae give her any more captain," she said in a mock Scottish accent.

Jack gave her a quick glare and turned to the others. "Any ideas?"

Owen shrugged and said with a smirk, "Dammit Jack, I'm a doctor, not a magician!"

"Seeking cover in the lower levels of the archives seems like the most logical choice of action, Captain," Ianto provided.

Jack didn't seem pleased with all the impersonations going on at his expense, but Ianto had a point. The five of them ran off to the stairs, with Gwen still trying to think of another character she could quote. Did Uhura have a catchphrase? Jack was obviously Kirk, whether he liked it or not…

They all crashed into each other as the wave hit, shaking the Hub slightly and knocking the lights out.

"Shit!" Jack said. "Tosh, Ianto, someone, get the lights back on!"

"Is everyone alright?" Gwen asked, though she figured her question was already half-answered since she could hear Tosh and Ianto scurrying off.

"Fine," Jack said, unnecessarily.

"I don't think I'm hurt," Owen said. "Can't really tell, of course, but I think I'm all in one piece. What about you?"

"I'm fine," Gwen started to say, but hesitated. "Actually, I feel kind of weird."

"Weird how?"

"Dunno. Off balance. And my back's kind of… it doesn't hurt, but it feels wrong."

"Owen, get up to the autopsy bay," Jack said. He shouted over his shoulder, "GET THOSE LIGHTS UP!" before turning back to Gwen, grabbing her hand.

"Can you walk?" he asked, over the sound of Owen clattering up the stairs.

_Clattering_? Gwen thought. "I think so. Nothing really hurts, I just - "

There was a loud buzzing sound for a moment as the lights flickered back to life. Jack stared at Gwen in shock.

"Gwen, you've turned blue!"

"I've what?" She raised an arm in disbelief, and found that it had, in fact, turned blue. "What the _hell_?"

"All those reports brought up environmental changes," Jack mused, "But I bet it affects people too, changing physical appearances…"

The lights flickered off again. They heard Ianto curse from the other room, and Myfanwy screeched in outrage at the continued disturbances.

"Come on," Jack said, heaving Gwen to her feet. She felt even more awkward now, like her legs were bending in all the wrong places, but she stumbled up the first few steps.

The lights came on again.

Gwen gaped up at Jack, opening and closing her mouth as she searched for something to say. He didn't seem to notice, and just kept pulling her up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, she snapped out of it, and, feeling a little light-headed and giggly, asked, "Jack, is this turning you on?"

He blinked at her. "What kind of question is that?"

"It's just that you look a little horny," she said, holding back a giggle.

Jack shrugged. "Not any more than usual," he said, but he looked down to check his trousers anyway.

Gwen gave up suppressing her laughter and grabbed his hand, guiding it up to the sharp horn that seemed to have sprouted out of his forehead during the blackout. He felt it with his fingers, his face a mask of utter confusion.

"What in the world?"

The Hub shook again, and they fell to all fours with a yell. Similar cries echoed from the other areas of the Hub as the others lost their balance as well.

The lights went out.

"Jaaack!" came Ianto's voice, just on the verge of panic. "Jack, we have a big problem!"

"Shit!" Owen agreed, trying to get to his feet and finding it rather difficult.

"Oh my," Toshiko said, ignoring the monitor for once and staring at where her hands should have been.

"What the hell happened?" Jack said, bounding up the stairs, apparently unphased by his sudden transformation. He tossed his head back, taking stock of the damage to the Hub, Gwen following awkwardly behind with a steady _clop clop clop!_

He stopped and stared as he found his team; Tosh slumped over her keyboard in shock, Ianto slipping as he tried to join the others, Owen limping out of the Autopsy Bay. He sat down, his legs sticking out in front of him and his arms - no, front legs? - tucked neatly between.

"Myyy little pooonyyyy~" Gwen sang, still giggling with shock. She seemed to have mostly got the hang of walking now, carefully putting one blue hoof in front of the other. She laughed out loud as the others shakily joined her and Jack.

"This is so messed up," Owen said, flicking his tail experimentally. "We're straight out of a bloody cartoon!"

"I used to play with My Little Ponies," Tosh said quietly, watching Gwen trot around her desk.

"I did too!" she said. She stopped and looked over her shoulder delightedly. "Look, I've got wings! I always liked the ones with wings." She fluttered them, sending a couple feathers floating to the ground.

"Well lucky you," Owen snarled, collapsing to the ground. "You're up to six limbs then, and I've only got three." He waved his arm to demonstrate - the cast around his hand seemed to have changed along with the rest of him, holding the permanently broken appendage in place even though it had transformed into a hoof.

"You've got a horn, though," Tosh pointed out.

Owen frowned, rolling his eyes up as he attempted to see his own forehead. Jack looked up from examining his reflection in the fountain and smirked.

"Mine's bigger."

"Oh shut _up_."

"How did this happen, though?" Ianto asked from his seat nearby. "People don't just turn into cartoon characters."

"Apparently, we do," Jack said, getting up. Owen noticed with distaste that he stood quite a bit taller than the rest of them. "And we need to get to the bottom of this. Tosh, do you think you can get that program back up so we can trace the source of the energy wave?"

"How?" Tosh asked, stepping forwards awkwardly in an attempt to avoid Gwen, who had stopped prancing and fluttering and started advancing on her from behind. "I don't have any fingers! I don't know how you expect me to type - Gwen, what are you _doing_?"

"She's trying to see your tramp stamp," Owen said with a smirk.

"Cutie mark!" Ianto corrected. Owen stared at him in wordless disbelief. He shrunk back defensively. "I have a niece!"

Gwen ignored them, busy trying to get a better look at Toshiko's flank as the smaller woman - pony - sidestepped her. "Yours is a computer, Tosh, how fitting."

Owen caved to his curiosity and stretched around to try and see his own… mark… against his grey-blue coat. "What's mine, I can't make it out from here."

"Maybe if you stood up," Gwen said, trotting over.

"Do you know how hard it is to walk when you suddenly have two extra legs and one of them doesn't even work?"

"It's a syringe," Gwen reported. "That's a little morbid."

"What's morbid about it, it means medicine. I was half expecting a skull or something. Something that says 'dead horse walking!'"

"Pony."

"Whatever."

"Coffee," Ianto put in, disgusted. "Really, that's what I get stuck with? Coffee? I _do_ do other things around here, you know."

"What's mine?" Gwen asked, turning in a circle in her attempt to find out.

"It's a heart," Owen said.

Gwen sat down, disappointed. "Is that all? That's rather generic, isn't it."

"It's a heart and a gun," Tosh said. "You didn't let him finish."

"Well that was never on any of my ponies back home," Gwen laughed. "What about you, Jack?"

"The world could be ending and all you four want is to look at my ass," Jack said, shaking his head in mock shame. He turned around obediently.

Gwen cocked her head. "Huh," she said.

"Bit anticlimactic," Ianto agreed. "I was half expecting it to be censored."

"Why, what is it?" Jack asked.

"Just the Torchwood logo," Owen said.

Jack's ears and tail drooped, much to their amusement. "I've been here too long," he said. "I used to be freelance, you know, came and went as I pleased. When did this place become more than just a job?"

"Cheer up Jack, you can always have tattoo removal surgery like the rest of the girls with regrettable tramp stamps," Owen said, struggling to his feet. "Were we gonna try and track down whatever's causing all this or what?"

"Right," Jack said. "Okay, if Tosh can't manage the computer like this, we'll have to track it the old fashioned way. Its last known whereabouts were up on the Plass - we'll go up and try and see if we can find it on foot. Hoof."

Ianto glanced up at the exit. "Does anyone know how to work a doorknob with hooves?"

Jack stopped in his tracks, frowning. He turned around and walked back around the fountain. "We'll take the invisible lift," he decided. "Come on, let's go."

"Can you work the _lift_ with hooves?" Ianto asked, trotting to catch up with him.

"I still have this," Jack said, lifting his hoof that still had his wrist strap attached.

"Can you work _that_ with - "

"Oh shut up, Ianto, I'll figure it out."

They all crowded onto the tile, barely managing to fit. Jack flipped open the wrist strap with his teeth and began trying to poke at the buttons with his nose.

Ianto glanced around the Hub, his ears perked. "Do you hear singing?"

Toshiko frowned, looking up. "The hot house," she deduced. "It looks like the flowers have started a choir."

"Lovely," Owen said sarcastically, lying down on his stomach again. "Just what this place was missing."

The lift started up with a jolt and Jack straightened up, feeling rather proud of himself.

As they started to rise into the air, they were startled by a screech, much louder than they were used to hearing. A great winged creature swooped down from the ceiling of the Hub, circling the rising lift with a familiar, if distorted, cry.

"Oh wonderful," Ianto said. "Myfanwy's become a dragon."

Up on the surface, Cardiff seemed to be in a similar state. The five of them remained on the lift for a moment, staring in vague horror at the changes that had overtaken the city.

"It's so pink," Toshiko whispered.

"It's horrifying," Owen said.

Jack huffed, and, managing not to let his embarrassment show when it came out like a whinny, stepped over Owen down onto the pavement. "Come on, let's get going. The sooner we find this thing, the sooner we put everything back to normal."

"Well, maybe," Gwen said, hopping off after him. "We don't know that for sure."

"Do you have any other ideas?" he snapped at her. "Owen, stop lying around, we've got a job to do."

"I can't," Owen said, still lying on the lift. "Ianto's on my tail."

Ianto jolted out of his reverie at that, and danced in place for a moment, unsure of which limb needed lifting. Jack snorted at them and walked over to grab the tie Ianto was still wearing for some reason in his teeth, dragging him away from the fountain. Tosh hopped off behind him, and Owen struggled back to his feet in the rear.

"Sorry," Ianto said, "I was distracted."

"There is an awful lot to be distracted by," Tosh said, watching a bicycle ride past without a rider.

"It's the sun. It's wearing sunglasses."

Jack glanced up. "Well _that_'s obviously impossible, so this must all be an illusion of some sort. Nothing's actually changed, we just perceive it that way."

The other four ponies glared at him.

"This does not _feel_ like an illusion, Jack," Gwen said.

"I have four legs," Ianto added.

"And hooves!" Tosh said, stamping her front two in demonstration.

"A sufficiently advanced mind trick can have you believing anything," Jack said, stomping a hind leg angrily. "We can't necessarily trust our own senses in this."

"Well then what the hell are we supposed to believe, Jack?" Owen said. "How are we supposed to find this thing if we can't even believe our own eyes?"

"We'll have to make due," Jack said, stalking past them. "Even if our perception of reality's been altered, it all seems to relate back to the real world. The thing that caused all this is here, somewhere, we just have to find it."

The four of them stared after him. With a shared exasperated glance, they followed.

"Maybe it's both physical and mental," Toshiko mused.

"It's mental alright," Owen muttered, and he flinched as Gwen flicked her tail in his face.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well Jack's right, the sun physically cannot be wearing sunglasses, they would have to be enormous and indestructible. But we can all feel the changes ourselves, so maybe it's both a physical change and an illusion, combined."

"Any way to test that theory?" Owen asked.

"No," Tosh said flatly. "Really everything could be in our minds. No real way to tell."

"Well if it actually is all a mass hallucination, that'll make our cover story easy. We use that excuse all the time," Ianto said, stepping over another singing flower. "Does anybody know where we're going?"

"We're supposedly after the source of all this."

"I know, but why are we going this way? Is there any reason Jack thinks this is the right way to go?"

Jack overheard, and he shrugged. "It's just a guess really. Feels right for some reason."

"Of course it does."

"Jack."

"I can't explain it any better, Tosh, I just think this is the right way to go."

"Jack," Toshiko repeated, trotting to catch up with him. "Your horn is glowing."

"What?" Jack said, ignoring the sounds of Owen and Gwen and Ianto all trying to stifle their sniggering.

"Well you are a magical sparkly unicorn," Gwen said. "Must be your special magic power to track aliens or something."

"There's no such thing as magic," Jack said crossly, definitively not looking at the woman riding by across the street on her broomstick.

Gwen ignored him, glancing back over her shoulder. "I wonder if I can fly," she said, flapping her wings experimentally.

"Those things are way too small," Owen said, "They wouldn't be able to generate enough lift for your body weight; they're too out of proportion. You'd have to beat them like a bumble bee does, and they're just not built for that kind of movement or speed."

Gwen just crouched down, wings spread. She jumped into the air and flapped madly, sending feathers cascading down onto all of them.

"Hah!" she said, panting as she flapped her wings to remain airborne. "We've already been transformed into brightly colored ponies, Owen, I think one more impossible thing isn't that hard to fathom."

"It's all bloody ridiculous," Owen said, sulking.

"Ridiculous or not, we have to find a way to stop it before it becomes dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Gwen asked, gliding down and hovering next to Jack's shoulder. "How could it be dangerous? Weird, yes, and a bit annoying, but it doesn't seem all that bad."

"Didn't you watch cartoons growing up?" Owen asked.

Ianto nodded. "Even the most benign of children's television tend to rely heavily on slapstick beyond the scope of human tolerance. Anvils and pianos falling from the sky, people falling off cliffs… Put into the real world, as seems to be the situation, people could become seriously hurt."

"Yeah, but we do have one advantage in all this," Jack said, smirking back at them.

"What's that?" Tosh asked.

He grinned and winked at her. "The good guys always win."

"More ice cream, please!"

The clouds rumbled ominously in response, and as lightning struck nearby, chocolate ice cream rained from the sky. Elizabeth giggled and held her bowl up in the air; the dessert landed with a perfect plop!

_Are you having fun, Elizabeth?_

Elizabeth nodded happily, her lips smeared with chocolate. "Mm-hmm!" she said. "What about you, Sparkle?"

_I am having lots of fun! What do you want to play next?_

Elizabeth tapped her spoon against her lips. "I dunno. I can't really think of anything else. We've done everything!" Her bright smile dimmed a little as she looked around the street for inspiration. Her gaze caught on a couple of grown-ups, a cowboy and a fairy queen, riding their pumpkin carriage across the road as a little boy with wolf ears and a tail egged on the giant swans bearing them with little whoops of joy.

"We still haven't found my mummy and daddy," she said quietly. She put her bowl of ice cream down in her lap and stared sadly at it, resting in the folds of her raincoat. She tugged her tiara off and dropped it. "I don' really wanna play pretend any more, Sparkle."

_But we were having so much fun_, Sparkle said, sounding upset.

"Yeah, but I gotta find 'em," Elizabeth said. "Daddy always told me if I got lost I should stay where I am or ask a policeman for help."

_A policeman?_

"Yeah. Only I dunno where the police station is." Elizabeth looked around her. "I don't know where we are! Oh Sparkle, I think we're even more lost now!"

Sparkle flared up in alarm as her friend started crying. She sputtered about around her, unsure of what to do.

_Oh don't cry, Elizabeth! It'll be ok, you'll see!_

"B-but, Mummy and Daddy…"

_We'll find them! We'll find them, I promise! We just have to keep looking._

"But Daddy said to stay in one place!"

_But we've been all over half the city anyway! And we didn't find them. So they must be where we haven't looked yet_! Sparkle said, proud of her logic. _If we just keep moving, we're bound to find them!_

Elizabeth sniffed. "Y-you think so?"

_Sure! And even if we don't we're bound to find a policeman. I could make you a policeman if you want! What're they like?_

"I don't think a pretend policeman will help," Elizabeth said, wiping her eyes. "But you're right, we should keep looking."

Sparkle gathered around the tiara and placed it back on Elizabeth's head. _What should we play while we look?_

"I dunno, Sparkle, I don't really wanna play any more."

_But you have to keep your spirits up, Elizabeth! We should keep playing. Or you could tell me more stories about those shows and books and stuff! I like those._

Elizabeth sighed a little, starting to understand why Mummy got so annoyed when she asked for another bedtime story.

"All right, all right. Let's see…."

"How much further, Jack?"

"I already told you, I don't know." Jack was becoming weary of answering his team's constant questioning. "I don't know how this works any more than you do."

"Do you think it's a trap?" Ianto mused, lagging behind a little.

"Well we are being guided straight towards it," Owen said, barely managing to keep pace with his broken hoof. "So yeah, I think it's pretty likely."

"Trap or not, we still have to find it," Jack said firmly.

"Oh, I know," Ianto said. "Just wondering about how easy this all is."

"Wandering around a cartoon infested city all day is easy?" asked Gwen.

"Well it is for you, you've barely used your legs since you realized those little feathery blobs actually did something."

"You're just jealous," she said, sticking her tongue out at Owen.

"If this all is based on children's television," Toshiko said to Ianto, ignoring them, "Then we have to have the whole thing wrapped up within the half hour."

"22 minutes without advertisements."

"Maybe up to an hour or two, if it's a feature-length special." Tosh watched as two geese wearing bonnets waddled by, giggling at the quintet of ponies behind their wings. "I wonder what the advantage of making everything a cartoon could be."

"Could be an accident," Jack mused. "Some terraforming device tuning into CBBC or something."

"Can that happen?"

"Well something's happened. We won't really know what until we find what we're looking for."

"We don't know what we are looking for, though."

"Shut up, Owen, I'm sure we'll know it when we see iiiiiiiit-!" Jack cut off with a yelp as his horn started glowing even brighter; his head swung around, and he found himself dragged off against his will.

"Jack!" Tosh and Ianto both shouted, galloping after him in alarm. Owen cursed and stumbled along behind them, and Gwen doubled over in a fit of laughter yet again.

"This is all so bloody hilarious!"

"Well I'm glad someone's enjoying herself," Jack snarled, trying to slow himself down. "What the hell is going on with this dumb thing?"

"Plot device?" suggested Ianto.

Gwen passed the others with a flutter of wings. She turned and flew backwards to talk to Jack as he dragged all four hooves against the pull of his horn. "But Jack, if your magical unicorn power is to track alien threats, and we're looking for the alien threat, why don't you just let it lead you?"

Jack glared at her for a moment.

"Fine," he said. He tossed his head, lowered his still glowing horn, and charged.

Gwen yelped as he bowled her over, tumbling to the ground and knocking into Ianto. "Sorry!"

"'S alright," he muttered. They both struggled to their feet, with some attempt to help from Tosh that more resembled nuzzling. Owen limped past them, making an odd 'snerk' sound as he stifled his laughter at their failure to detangle their limbs.

"Shouldn't we catch up with Captain Horny over there?"

Gwen shook her head to clear it as she finally managed to step away from Ianto. "Yeah, no shit, thanks for that."

Ianto was still having some trouble raising himself off the ground, as his front hooves kept getting caught in his tie. "Did anybody see where he went?"

They all glanced around; Jack had disappeared.

"Great," Owen said. "You've lost him."

"_We've _lost him?" said Ianto. "I don't see you giving us any ideas."

"No, the bright ideas seem to all be coming from little miss heart-on-my-arse over there. Why don't you run right into the trap, Jack? Don't mind us, we'll catch up, never mind that _we_ don't have magical alien tracking powers."

Gwen stomped her hoof indignantly. "Well we weren't getting anywhere with him dragging his feet - hooves - like that! If you were so concerned why didn't you go after him?"

Owen scowled at her. "You expect me to run with this?" he drawled, holding up his bum hoof once again.

"Well it's not like it hurts, and you don't run out of breath like the rest of us!"

Owen bristled. He turned away sharply, lashing his short tail as he stalked away towards where he'd last seen Jack.

Gwen's ears flattened against her head in embarrassment, but she didn't apologize.

Tosh glanced back and forth between the two of them.

"Owen!" she called.

Owen didn't look back.

"Owen!" Toshiko galloped after him. "Owen, we're never going to catch up, he has too much of a head start."

"Oh I'm sure I'll get there eventually, after all, I don't get tired. Lucky lucky me."

"Owen, that's not what Gwen meant," Tosh said. "Come on, we should stick together."

"Obviously Jack doesn't think so. We might as well just drop it, let the hero save the day as always. I wonder if any of the pubs around here will serve a talking pony. Not that I can drink anyway."

"Oh knock it off, Owen," Ianto said, catching up with a short canter. Gwen clopped on behind him, her head still down. "This is no time for you to be sulking."

"I'm not sulking."

"Yeah you are," Gwen muttered. Tosh and Ianto both glared at her to shut up.

"Look, we're not going to get through this if we can't even work together," Ianto continued.

"Oh sure," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "Because we're obviously going to save the world with the power of love and friendship. Let's all hug and discover our inner power we never knew we had."

"Oh!" Toshiko said suddenly, stopping.

"Oh what?" Owen said, turning to stare at her in exasperation. "Did you discover your special magical power?"

"No," Tosh said, "But that reminded me. Gwen, can't you just fly up and try and find Jack from above?"

Gwen blinked her oversized eyes at her. "Oh, I guess I can, can't I?"

She disappeared into the sky with a flutter. Ianto shook off a blue feather that landed on his nose.

"Think she'll find him?" he asked.

"He's a grey-blue unicorn with a brightly glowing horn being dragged through the streets by an invisible force," Owen said. "How hard can it be to find that?"

They all stood in awkward silence. A reindeer with bells and lights on its antlers trotted by, raising its top hat and nodding politely to them. They stared at the sky, waiting for Gwen to reappear from the clouds.

It was a few minutes before she finally dropped down and landed clumsily just behind them, panting heavily.

"Did you see him?" Toshiko asked.

Gwen waved her off with a hoof, still breathing heavily and fanning herself with her wings.

"Hang on," she said, "Let me catch my breath for a moment, 's hard work, flying." She flinched suddenly and looked up at Owen. "I'm really sorry, Owen, I didn't mean to say that, earlier, I mean, I was just frustrated - "

"'S all right," Owen said. "All in the past. No use beating a dead horse, right?" He smirked at her.

Ianto snorted. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"

"Just thought of it while we were sitting here waiting. Why, did I steal your opening? How long have you been waiting to say it?"

"Quite a while now," Ianto said with a shrug. "Thought it was a little insensitive though."

"Did you find him though?" Tosh asked again.

Gwen shook her head. "Not exactly. Did get a view of some of those robots Rhys was calling me about, they really do look like Transformers. Anyway, I didn't see Jack, but I think I can tell where he was heading."

She nodded off to her right. "There's something big going on over that way - monsters, fantastic creatures, you name it. And what looks like a big tornado or something, all in the middle of it. Definitely looks important, could be our source."

"A magical tornado?" Ianto said skeptically.

Toshiko shrugged. "Best idea we've got. And we know Jack can't help running towards whatever looks most dangerous, so it's our best bet."

Gwen got back her feet with only a small clatter of hooves, and set off at a brisk trot towards the tornado, Toshiko, Ianto, and Owen following close behind.

_Oh no_, Sparkle said. _No no no no no no no._

"Sparkle!" Elizabeth sobbed. "Do something!"

Sparkle dimmed and flickered wildly about the girl's head. _I I I I I I I, _she said,_ I don't know what I I I._

The creature before them snarled, it's needle like teeth grown to enormous proportions, its rancid breath making Elizabeth cough and whimper.

_Malfunction_, Sparkle whispered. _Malfunction_!

"Mal what?" Elizabeth squeaked.

The creature snarled again. Elizabeth huddled in the corner. "Sparkle I don't like this game!" she cried. "Make it go away!"

_I can't I I I I I am damaged I don't know_

"Change it to something else! A talking duck, I want a talking duck!"

A duck fell unceremoniously from the sky. It shook its head. The monster's head swung around and stared at it.

"Holy shit!" said the duck, and floundered backwards before taking to the air and flying away.

The monster turned back to stare heavily at Elizabeth. She clenched her eyes shut. "Mummy, Daddy," she whimpered. "Sparkle I want my Mummy!"

Sparkle said nothing, still just sparking helplessly in the air.

The creature lunged.

The way to the supposed 'source' was made difficult. It seemed that every one of the strange creatures had been gathered near to the tornado, and now were trying very hard to get away from it. In addition, the entire populous of Cardiff had gravitated to the commotion, and, already in a tizzy from the sudden transformations most of them had undergone, they were panicking, screaming, running everywhere, and fighting, as frightened humans were prone to do, never mind that many of them no longer resembled said species.

The four ponies did their best to maneuver through the crowd.

"I miss the SUV," Ianto said.

"Well you're welcome to go back, get the keys, and attempt to get it working with only hooves and your mouth," Gwen said.

"You'd be surprised what I can do with my mouth," Ianto said.

"Jack's not here, Ianto," Owen said flatly.

"Right, sorry. Instinct."

"Just hang on, we must be getting close by now," Toshiko said. "If the amount of chaos is anything to measure by."

"Should I go have another look?"

"We're liable to lose you in the swarm," Ianto pointed out, glancing up at the sky, filled with flying monkeys and fairies and other winged things.

"Right," Gwen said with a sigh. She flinched as she narrowly avoided crashing into a large purple bird speeding through the streets. "Because it's so much better down here."

"At least we can all keep an eye on each other," he said. "We don't want to lose anyone else."

They did their best to hunch together, but it was difficult to push through the crowd. Owen in particular was doing his best to avoid being trod upon, as he was certain he did not want to find out what an injury to his dead-ish pony body would translate to on his dead-ish human one. Gwen was the opposite, walking too quickly and doubling back when she realized she'd gotten separated again, dodging around the various bodies with relative ease, thanks to her experience in crowd control. Tosh and Ianto did their best to mediate the pace, but it didn't really work until Toshiko grew fed up with both of them and grabbed hold of Gwen's tail in her teeth, instructing the boys to do the same.

And so a daisy chain of undersized, Technicolor ponies zigzagged its way through the crowd across the streets of Cardiff.

As they walked, Gwen's ominous magical tornado became visible over the rooftops. Much to their relief, the crowd seemed to be thinning as well, and their pace picked up to a light trot. Gwen led the way with confidence, not really noticing as the other three strained to keep up, dragged behind by the train of tails.

She tugged them around the corner and was forced to slow down rather abruptly; the crowd was suddenly thick again, and unmoving. A veritable wall of people and creatures blocked their way just up ahead, stopped by the remarkably mundane presence of a line of caution tape and some police vehicles.

The police themselves had their hands full working the crowd. A gorilla in uniform was shouting through a megaphone for everyone to keep calm and exit the area, and a couple of policewomen with butterfly wings were firmly turning the bottleneckers away from the area.

The throng wasn't making any effort to leave, but it seemed content to stay behind the barrier for the most part. The Torchwood ponies were the only ones still pushing forwards, trying to find a way through the throng. The gorilla shouted at them, his voice garbled from the megaphone.

When they didn't stop, more voices joined in, repeating the message; please stay behind the police line, remain calm.

Gwen's ears perked up. She leapt into the air with a grin and hovered above the heads of the rabble, looking for the source of the voice.

"Andy!" she shouted delightedly, swooping down to stand next to him.

Andy jumped in alarm, nearly dropping his car radio as he ducked out of the window he'd been leaning in. "Gwen?"

They stared at each other. Gwen snorted.

"Hey Andy," she said. "You mind making way for Torchwood?"

"Er," Andy said, still gaping down at the little blue pegasus that used to be one of his best friends. "Yeah, I guess."

He sighed and pulled his hat off. "Is this mess one of yours, then?"

"We didn't _cause_ it, Andy," Gwen said crossly. "But we are working to fix it, and we need to get through here if we want to get to the bottom of things."

"Something to do with that tornado-thing then?"

"Probably," Gwen said. "By the way, you haven't seen a unicorn with a T on his arse come through here, did you?"

"Erm," said Andy, looking around at the crowd. "I don't think so. Well, that one's got a tea on his behind, but I wouldn't call it a unicorn."

Gwen looked where he was pointing; Ianto was looking worriedly on as Owen examined the bottom of Tosh's chin, which had been scraped on the pavement when Gwen's tail was suddenly yanked out from between her teeth, knocking her over.

"Oh, no," she said, a little guiltily. "Ianto's got coffee, most likely. Jack has an actual letter T. And he's a sort of blue-grey."

Andy took a moment to process that before bursting out in laughter. "You're all turned into horsies then? Oh that's rich, the great and powerful Torchwood. Unicorns and ponies!"

Gwen fluttered her wings in irritation. "Yeah, well, at least I'm not a bear."

Andy's ears flattened, but he shrugged. "Least it's not a Care Bear. And _I_ still have hands."

"Touché," said Gwen. "But I can do this."

She launched into the air again, doing an impromptu flip before landing back with the team.

"Show-off," Owen accused. "What'd you take off for, Tosh could've bit through her tongue with a fall like that."

"I'm so sorry Tosh," Gwen said, sheepishly hunkering down into her wings. "I wasn't thinking. But I thought I heard Andy, and he said he'll clear the way for us to go through."

She gestured up towards the barricade, where Andy was pushing the crowd aside with his big paws.

"Well," Ianto said. "That's… that's something."

Owen just scoffed and pushed past them towards the newly formed path. "Well that's a relief. I'm sick of having my mouth full of tail, and I've definitely had enough of staring at Ianto's arse."

Ianto snorted. "You're just jealous."

"We all know Owen's always been a horse's arse though," Tosh said, following them. "Thank you, Andy," she added to the bear, who was politely holding up the caution tape.

"Yeah, right. Just get all this sorted quick, all right?"

Owen smirked in response. "No problem, PC Pooh Bear. Just keep the way clear for us professionals, would you?"

Andy scowled at him, showing off his sharp teeth. "Just hurry up, would you?"

To Gwen, he added, "I'll keep an eye out for that captain of yours."

"Thanks, Andy," she said, lifting into the air again. "Though knowing him, he's probably already right in the middle of everything."

Jack didn't notice at first when the tug on his horn had stopped, so by the time he had stopped running, he found himself right in the middle of everything.

'Everything' was, in this case, a hoard of very angry, very strange looking creatures. They all shared the permanent scowl, the very sharp teeth, and the constant incoherent howling and growling and snarling; aside from that, they were all over the map. One of them had feathery wings and talons, and couldn't seem to stop itself flapping into walls every time it tried to move; another had a horse's body, not altogether unlike Jack's own, though from the horse's shoulders up was a more or less humanoid body, towering over Jack's head with the combined height of the two torsos; still others were half snake, had eight legs or fins or pointy ears - one even had sparkly butterfly wings, which left behind silvery sparkles as the creature lunged for Jack's throat with its partly transfigured claws.

Honestly, if they hadn't all been wearing the remains of boiler suits, Jack hardly would have recognized them as weevils at all.

"Shit!" Jack declared as the fairy princess weevil grazed his chest with its claws.

"_Shit_!" he added, suddenly distracted by the harpy weevil crashing into his back half with a screech.

He bucked angrily, rising onto his front legs and lashing out as hard as he could with the back pair. The fairy weevil lunged again and he ducked his head, managing to stab it in the shoulder with his horn by pure luck.

It fell back, wailing, and Jack felt fleetingly sorry for it, transformed by whatever it was afflicting all of Cardiff and utterly unable to understand what was going on, but then the centaur weevil charged. Jack reared up by some unfortunate instinct, and the weevil caught his hooves on the way down, pushing him backwards and making him overbalance.

Jack found himself on his back, winded, staring at a pair of black hooves coming down very quickly towards his face. He moved without thinking, rolling over as the hooves came crashing down onto the cement.

He stumbled but managed onto his own hooves. He tossed his head and glared at the gathering of ex-weevils, backing up slowly. The weevils stared back, growling and baring their teeth as they advanced towards him.

Jack stopped when his hind legs hit the wall. The weevils did not.

"Shit," he said yet again, not really able to come up with anything else to say. He wondered what it would be like, dying as a pony. Most likely just as painful. Would he heal human, or still be stuck unicorn? Maybe some weird hybrid.

He wasn't planning on finding out if he didn't have to, though. He crouched, tensing his back legs in preparation and ducking his head so his sharp horn faced the approaching threat.

Jack's eyes rolled up to stare at the weevils. He pawed the ground with his front hoof, waiting impatiently for an opening.

The centaur lunged.

Jack charged.

The weevils fell apart with a cacophony of screeches - he felt the horse-body impact his own, making his shoulder ache with every step, but Jack kept running. Something went _crunch_ under his hooves, and suddenly there was something disgusting that looked possibly like snake guts trailing behind him. Eyes fixed on the path ahead, Jack could only guess the aliens' distance behind him by the fading sounds of growling and wailing, half blocked by his own hoof beats.

Jack skidded around a corner, back onto a main road. Out of the alley, it was easier to run, though his hooves began to ache. The sounds of pursuit faded gradually behind him.

He tossed his head back and laughed in adrenaline-fueled relief. With a grin, he slowed to a trot, taking a quick glance over his shoulder to see where the weevils were. He caught a glimpse of the feathery one fumbling through the air back into the alley - thankfully, they preferred to stay out of the sunlight when possible, and the bespectacled star was still more or less unhindered by the candyfloss clouds.

Jack smiled and turned back ahead, trying to get his bearings. While being dragged along by his own forehead, he'd seen what looked a bit like a ship, albeit one drawn by winged kittens, but he'd lost sight of it after charging into the den of weevils. Now, it couldn't be found, and his horn had stopped its tugging, and he was left with little idea where to go. The team was… who knows where, and the streets were empty.

His hooves ached, he thought, as the excitement from the chase wore off. He wondered if it was from a lack of horseshoes. Were there any blacksmiths in Cardiff? There must be some somewhere in Wales, what with all the empty farmland and -

His hooves clattered as he slipped, and he barely managed to catch himself when he lost his balance.

Lost in thought about horseshoes and blacksmithery and his team and getting lost, Jack hadn't noticed as the sky darkened, or the way the wind picked up, or even the strange golden sparks in the air above him.

He still didn't notice those things, only vaguely hearing in his mind Sparkle's telepathic cries of _Help, oh no, what do I do, help, no no no no no no malfunction malfunction. _

Instead he stared at the puddle of blood at his hooves, and the broken figure of a little girl in a yellow raincoat sprawled on the ground, taking shallow, gurgling breaths half filled with her own blood.

"Mummy," he heard, "Daddy, where are you? Sparkle, it hurts!"

She coughed, spitting out more blood onto the pavement, grasping the wound in her stomach the weevil had ripped open.

_Elizabeth no no no I have to find them malfunction hang on Elizabeth find a policeman oh no oh no help help malfunction!_

"Shit," said Jack.

Beyond the police barrier, it was much easier going, in terms of crowds; the streets were empty as they galloped through. Unfortunately, this close to the tornado, the winds were strong enough to push them backwards if they weren't careful.

Still, they charged forwards. Ianto took the lead, his slightly stockier build lending him some stability; Gwen huddled behind him, seeking cover from being constantly buffeted to the side by the harsh winds. Toshiko and Owen brought up the rear, stumbling as they fought to keep up.

"Any sign of Jack?" Tosh shouted.

"Not yet!" Ianto called back as he braced himself against the wind. "Bet he's right at the heart of that thing," he added, jerking his head towards the twister looming just ahead of them. It was stationary, which was unusual for tornados; a whirling vortex of wind and debris that remained perfectly in place in the street.

_Help help stop no police police mummydaddy help!_

"Did you lot hear that?" asked Gwen.

"I can barely hear myself," Owen shouted over the wind.

"I heard it," Tosh said. "Only it wasn't really a sound, just a voice - "

"A voice without a sound, that makes perfect sense."

"Shut up, Owen, if you would just listen - "

_No no no stop! STOP! DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!_

There was a flash of golden light from the tornado, and it grew suddenly in diameter, reaching out for the four ponies and knocking them from their feet into the wall of one of the buildings lining the street.

Gwen yelped, crashing into the wall sideways. Ianto plowed into her, and Tosh into him. Owen winced as he heard a _crack_! at his impact, inwardly hoping it was one of the others and not yet another fracture of his own.

_Stay away from her! Help, police, malfunction - __**keep away, **__I said!_

"Who?" Ianto shouted at the air, untangling himself from the girls with a groan. "Stay away from who?"

_Oh no oh no oh no oh no_, the voice said,_ Oh no, Elizabeth, I'm so sorry, I'll find them, help, police, I need a policeman policeman policeman!_

"She's a policeman!" Owen shouted, gesturing at Gwen.

There was a pause from the voice. Gwen glared at Owen. The wind died down a little bit, though the tornado kept up its stationary spin.

_Policeman?_

"She is," Ianto confirmed. "She's with the police, we - we all are, we can help you."

_Help me,_ repeated the voice. _Help me, help Elizabeth, she's hurt, the game went wrong, malfunction mal - I have to find her parents, help her, help Elizabeth!_

Gwen took a steadying breath. "We can help you," she said. "Just calm down and tell me what the problem is."

The wind weakened.

_She's hurt,_ said the voice. _We were playing. We were looking for her mum and dad. I can't find them. I don't know what I'm looking for. I can't remember what to do._

Golden sparks flitted out from the dwindling tornado. They gathered in front of Gwen and flickered uncertainly. _She said to find police, police can find her dad, they know what to do._

Gwen glanced back at the team in mild panic. They gestured for her to go on. She swallowed. "Well, what… do you know her last name? Or her parents' names? I'm sure we can contact them, we just have to find their information…"

_I don't know anything!_ the sparks wailed. _We were just playing, she told me stories, and we acted it out, and we were having fun, but there were these monsters! Scary monsters, I don't like monsters, I never make monsters, monsters monsters no get away don't touch her, leave her alone!_

Gwen took an alarmed step back as the sparks flared with emotion. "Listen," she said again, "Let us help you, if you can just take us to Elizabeth - "

_NO_! the sparks screamed. The tornado suddenly picked up again, full force._ No no no, monsters, get away from her, don't you hurt her!_

The sparks rose into the air, flashing nearly white and speeding off into the sky.

"Monsters?" Toshiko said. "What kind of monsters?"

"Hang on, I'll go after it!" Gwen said, preparing for liftoff. She leapt, but her flight was cut short by a screeching mass of feathers careening into her. Gwen screamed, kicking the creature's belly with her hind legs as hard as she could; the feathery weevil screamed back, grabbing for her with hands it no longer possessed and trying to bite her as they tumbled to the ground together.

"Gwen!" Ianto shouted, running forwards to help her. He was blocked by another transformed weevil that vaulted onto his back, burying its sharp teeth in his shoulder. He roared in pain, bucking and rearing in an attempt to shake the creature off, but the fluttering purple butterfly wings gave it stability, and it refused to let go.

Ianto threw himself sideways into a wall; he caught a glimpse of Tosh as she ducked a monstrous centaur's sharp hooves, Owen backing away from a clacking, snarling facsimile of a spider. The weevil went _crunch_ against the wall, and one of its wings fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.

He stumbled to his feet as quickly as he could, leaving the weevil howling on the ground. Disoriented, he charged in a crooked path towards Gwen, determined to help her.

She detached herself from the weevil, shaking her head and stumbling to the side in the wind, but it just screeched and jumped back into the air, diving straight for her. Ianto ran for them, as fast as he could, but they were too far away to catch, it was going to grab her again -

A gray blur bowled into the weevil with a thunder of hooves, knocking it to the ground and away from Gwen.

Ianto slowed to a stop, staring. Jack tugged his horn out of the weevil's side, ignoring the alien's cries of pain. He grinned over at Ianto.

"Alright there, kids?" he shouted, sparing a glance at Gwen, too, before he charged back towards Tosh and Owen. He plowed into the centaur with his shoulder, and Tosh kicked its face in with her hind leg. As it stumbled, he continued over to Owen, trampling over the spider-weevil with a flourish. "Or should I say foals?"

He stepped easily off the partially squashed weevil, which dragged itself away with its remaining four limbs. The feathered one followed with an uneven gait, limping as fast as it could and snarling. The weevil Ianto had tackled just groaned from its position on the ground, leaving the centaur to face the group.

It growled menacingly, but faced with five angry ponies, it backed away. Jack snorted and bent his neck, glaring it down as he stamped the ground. Ianto copied his pose, and Gwen went around the side to block its escape. Tosh scraped her back foot on the cement, staring unwaveringly at the weevil. It bolted with one last roar at her, after its companions back the way they'd come.

Jack straightened up with a grin. "No point having a horn if you don't use it," he said cheerily to Owen.

Owen glanced with thinly veiled disgust at Jack's forehead; the horn and surrounding mane were both dripping with weevil blood. "Yeah, not interested in ruining every little girl's childhood there, thanks."

He blinked in surprise at that, and looked down at the gore on his hooves as if he'd just noticed it.

"Jack, is any of that blood yours?" Ianto asked as he approached.

Jack glanced at his coat; his chest was spattered with flecks of red and brown and black. Gwen was more mesmerized by the smear of red on his cheek and muzzle.

"No," he said, "I don't think so. Just weevil and… someone else. What about you, that bite looks pretty bad."

Ianto shrugged. "Doesn't hurt that much. I can manage."

"Gwen?"

"Fine, thanks. You had good timing."

"As always," Jack said with a smirk.

"Those weevils are heading back over to the police line," Toshiko said.

They all looked.

"Damn," said Jack. "You three, go after them, quick as you can; make sure nobody else has to get killed tonight. Gwen, you're with me, I need you to fly after Sparkle."

Tosh and Ianto needed no more encouragement; they galloped after the pack of aliens, both shaking off their injuries within the first few steps.

"Sparkle is that alien thing that was shouting about police then?" Gwen said, already starting after it.

"It's actually an AI," said Jack, "A kind of babysitting entertainment system, it alters the surrounding environment to create an exciting experience for the user. Only this one's been damaged, its limiter's broken, and now it's panicking, so it's turned on its defense mode, so we have to hurry up and get it calmed down so it can reverse all of this."

"Jack," Owen interrupted.

Jack started. "I thought you went with Tosh and Ianto."

Owen shrugged. "I can't keep up with them," he said. "I'll catch up later."

Jack frowned, but nodded. "Fine. Stay here for now, keep an eye out for the AI and any more transformed aliens, let us know if you find anything, come on Gwen - "

"Jack," Owen said again. "Whose blood is that?"

Jack stopped in his tracks. Gwen was already in the air, flying a cautious perimeter around the tornado, searching for a sign of the golden sparks.

"And you said 'nobody else has to get killed tonight,'" Owen continued. "Who got killed? Is that why the AI's panicking? It said something about an Elizabeth."

Jack sighed. He jerked his head to the left, gesturing to the tornado itself. "In there," he said, "There's a little girl. One of the weevils got to her. Slashed her chest and throat. She's bleeding to death; I tried to help, but she's too far gone. The AI knocked me away and wouldn't let me near her, that's what the tornado is protecting."

He glanced back at Owen over his shoulder before trotting to catch up with Gwen. "There's nothing we can do about it; go after Tosh and Ianto and put a stop to those weevils before they hurt someone."

Owen just watched him go.

Gwen found it easier to fly than to walk. The winds that had been such a hindrance on the ground lifted her easily into the air, and she gained elevation in no time, higher than she'd ever gone before.

Easier didn't mean easy, though. Debris flew at her from all directions, and it took all her concentration to avoid being hit. The wind pushed her firmly in circles around the tornado, and turning around was obviously not going to happen. She pushed out of her mind thoughts of how she was going to get down again as she circled higher and higher, squinting against the wind as she searched frantically for any sign of gold.

"Hello?" she shouted. "Sparkle? Hello?"

There was no answer except the howling wind.

"You wanted me to help you!" she shouted. "I'm police, just talk to me, let me help!"

"Gwen!"

Gwen looked down to see Jack shouting at her from a rooftop. With some effort she managed to point herself down, spreading her wings out to lower her speed.

"Any luck?"

"Not yet," she said. She dropped heavily onto the roof, panting. "What is it with you and rooftops?"

"Seems logical when your teammate's decided the only way to travel is by air," said Jack. "I had to take the stairs. Let me tell you, stairs and hooves do not mix."

"Well you did tell me to!" Gwen laughed. "What did Owen want?"

"Oh just… doctor stuff."

"Jack."

"He asked about Elizabeth."

"Right, and who is Elizabeth?"

"That would be the little girl that Sparkle the alien AI got attached to who got mauled by a weevil."

"And that's why it's freaking out and attacking us with tornadoes."

"That's about it, yup."

Gwen sighed. "Is there anything we can do?""

"Our best bet is getting Sparkle here to calm down," said Jack. "It's going to be difficult without the girl, but we have to manage. It's the only thing that's going to reverse all of, well, this." He raised a hoof and shrugged.

Gwen huffed, blowing her mane out of her face. "Right."

"Right. So, let's find Sparkle."

"How?"

Jack thought about it.

"HEY, SPARKLE!" he shouted.

"Right, because I didn't try that already," Gwen muttered, rubbing her ear with a hoof. She turned back to the edge of the roof, looking up at the top of the tornado. "Sparkle, let us help you!"

_Go away,_ said a quiet voice. _Leave me alone. _

Jack raised his eyebrows at Gwen. "Sparkle?" he said. "Sparkle, we want to talk to you."

_I don't know what to do. I am damaged. I do not know what to do._

"Listen, Sparkle," Gwen said. "You wanted my help. Well I'm here, you have to let me help you."

_Who are you?_

"My name is Gwen. I'm with the police. You wanted the police, didn't you?"

_Elizabeth said to find a policeman. Policemen help you when you're lost._

"Are you lost?" Jack asked.

_Elizabeth is lost,_ said Sparkle. _She cannot find her parents. _

The voice paused.

_I am also lost_, the AI admitted.

Jack stepped forward. Gwen admired his ability to make eye contact with something hidden inside a whirling tornado. "We can help you," he said. "We can get you repaired, help you get home."

_What about Elizabeth?_

Jack frowned. "Elizabeth… Sparkle, Elizabeth is -"

"I can go look for her parents," Gwen interjected. "I'm sure they're out looking for her. I'll find them and bring them back to her."

"Gwen."

"Shut up, Jack, I can find them."

Golden flickers emerged from the air. _You… can find them? You can take me home?_

Gwen looked earnestly at the sparks. "I promise, we'll do everything we can. But first you have to stop this wind. Okay?"

…._Okay_.

The wind slowly began to die down, and the tight spiral of the tornado unwound. There were distant thumps from the ground as the debris dropped.

"Thank you," said Gwen. "Just stay here with my friend Jack, all right, Sparkle? I'm going to go look for Elizabeth's parents. You just stay put and talk with Jack."

_All right._

Gwen walked to the edge of the roof and hunkered down in preparation for flight.

_Gwen_, said Sparkle.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at the sparks.

_Thank you._

Gwen smiled and nodded, then flapped her wings and took off.

"It hurts," she whispered. "I want my daddy."

"I know you do, sweetheart."

Elizabeth jerked in surprise and turned towards the sound. She tried to open her eyes, but saw only blurred shapes.

"I'm cold," she choked.

"Yeah, I know," said the voice, and something bent down over her, nuzzling her chest. It wasn't warm, but it was soft, and it was the first comfort she'd had since Sparkle had disappeared. After that there had been only the ground and her own sobbing and a constant roaring in her ears. Now it was quiet. She reached up and put her arms around the creature's neck, pulling it close and burying her face in the fur.

"Just hold on, sweetheart," the voice said, vibrating against her face.

Elizabeth relaxed, falling into unconsciousness in just a couple seconds. Her sticky hands slipped to the ground, leaving bloody red smears in gray fur. The last thing she heard was the voice, muttering to itself.

"I hope this bloody works."

Tosh and Ianto were on their way back towards Jack, having locked the weevils in one of the abandoned buildings. It hadn't been exactly easy - herding the aliens was simple enough, but locking the doors had proved fruitless, despite Ianto's earlier claims of dexterity without hands. They'd wound up just pushing things in front of the doors.

They were trotting back when Gwen suddenly sped past them, overhead.

They glanced at each other and ran after her.

"Gwen!" Ianto shouted.

She backpedaled in midair, turning around to hover just above normal eyelevel.

"You got the weevils?"

"Yeah," he said. "What's going on?"

She explained, quickly, about Sparkle and Elizabeth. "I'm going to look for her parents," she said. "I'll ask Andy to get the police on it, and I'll take a look myself. Care to help?"

"There are dozens of people out there," Tosh said. "You'll never find them just looking around."

"Worth a shot," Gwen said. "I have to try."

Ianto nodded in agreement. "We'll help you."

He and Toshiko jogged after her, back towards the police line. The crowd was still there, gathered right at the police tape and shouting at the officers angrily. Frankenstein's monster and an anthropomorphic rabbit seemed particularly incensed; they probably would have run through and been overturning patrol cars if Andy and his gorilla partner didn't make such an intimidating presence.

"Andy!" Gwen shouted, coming in for landing.

"Good God, Gwen!" said Andy, turning away from the crowd. "What the hell happened?"

He stared at the still oozing bite wound on Ianto's shoulder. Gwen ignored the question.

"We need to find a little girl's parents. Can we use your megaphone? They might be in the crowd somewhere. If they're not, we need you to contact the rest of the police and get a search out. It's important."

The gorilla looked like he was going to argue, but Andy grabbed the megaphone and held it out to her.

Gwen moved to grab it before stopping in confusion.

"Er," she said. "I may need you to hold it for me."

Andy held the microphone to her mouth, raising the horn above his head so everyone could hear.

"Excuse me everybody," boomed Gwen's voice over the area. "Sorry for the inconvenience, we hope to have this sorted out as soon as possible. Is there anybody here who's been separated from a little girl named Elizabeth? Again, we're looking for the parents of a lost girl named Elizabeth."

"No last name?" Andy asked.

"Our source didn't seem to know it," Ianto said.

The crowd just kept up its roar of dissatisfaction, pressing against the blockade angrily. They weren't happy about being turned into cartoon characters in the first place, and the police's apparent lack of priorities just made things worse.

Ianto sighed. To keep looking for Elizabeth's parents, they'd have to make their way back through that mess. He broke away from the police and his teammates, already looking for an opening.

"Wait!" said a voice from somewhere in the crowd. An arm rose up from the mass of heads, waving frantically. "Wait, that's my daughter! Elizabeth, I'm her father, please, wait, let me through!"

Ianto ducked his head and pushed into the throng, shoving people aside.

"Out of the way!" he shouted. "Let him through!"

He pushed his way through, meeting the man somewhere in the middle.

"You're Elizabeth's father?" he asked.

"Yes, thank God," said the man, apparently unphased by asking for the assistance of a talking pony. "She went missing this morning, just before all this happened. Is she all right? Where's my Lizzy?"

Ianto looked up at the man - he was fairly average looking, particularly amongst the multitude of mythical creatures and cartoons; tall, with dark hair and glasses. He was, however, wearing a long red cape and had a large letter "D" embroidered on his form-fitting shirt.

He smiled a little at that. "Please, sir, come with me. We've found your daughter, but… she's not doing so well. She's been looking for you, and we'd like to get you back to her as soon as possible."

The man went pale, but nodded. "Yes, thank you, please, take me to my daughter."

The two of them slipped under the police line, and were quickly joined by Gwen and Toshiko. Gwen managed to convince Andy to stay with the crowd, much to his displeasure, and she led the way back to Jack and Sparkle.

Elizabeth's father stared at the damage caused by the tornado. His eyes stuck on the crippled fairy-weevil Ianto had crushed, and traveled down the track of bloody hoof prints beside them.

He looked up at the sound of another set of hooves. Jack was trotting towards them, his mane haloed by Sparkle's luminescence. The effect was somewhat ruined by the weevil blood on his hooves and head, however.

"Good job everybody!" Jack said. "Sparkle, as you can see, Gwen kept her part of the bargain."

Sparkle flickered, and the sparks gathered in the air before the man's face. _You are… Elizabeth's father?_

"Yes," he choked. "Yes, please, where's my little girl?"

Sparkle glowed. _She told me to get a policeman. She said a policeman could find her parents. She was right!_

"Please, where is she?"

The AI flickered and dimmed. _Elizabeth. She - I - malfunction, I am damaged, I didn't know what to do._

"Wh- what?"

"Sir," Jack said, stepping forwards, "I'm afraid Elizabeth… she was attacked."

He went pale. "Attacked?"

_Elizabeth_, Sparkle whimpered. _No no no no no malfunction I I I I_

The wind started to pick up again.

"Sparkle, stop, there was nothing you can do," said Gwen urgently. "Elizabeth wouldn't want you to do this -"

"What happened to my daughter?" Elizabeth's father demanded. "Where is she?"

"Sir," said Jack again, "I'm afraid Elizabeth - "

" - is perfectly fine," said another voice. "No thanks to you lot."

Owen came limping up to the group, a little girl in a yellow-red raincoat draped over his back.

"Elizabeth!"

Elizabeth stirred, tightening her grip on Owen's neck. She looked up, blearily. "Daddy?"

Owen knelt awkwardly, letting her clamber off his back and run into her father's arms.

"Oh my god!" he shouted at the red stained gash in her coat and shirt. "What happened? Is that blood?"

Jack sidestepped the reunited family to get over to Owen. The others joined him, staring at the blood covered little girl and the complete lack of fatal wound.

"Owen," said Jack, "That little girl was attacked by a weevil. She had a gaping hole in her chest. I could have sworn she was dead."

Owen just stared at him loftily. "I'm a magic sparkly unicorn with a syringe tattooed on my arse. _Obviously_ I have magical healing powers."

Elizabeth struggled away from her father to run back up to Owen. She slung her arms back around his neck, tugging him down in a hug.

"Thank you, horsie!" she said. She grinned, pushing away and looking up at the gold glimmer in the air. "Thanks Sparkle, I had fun. I'm going home now, ok?"

_Thank you, Elizabeth_, said Sparkle. _I will be going home soon too, I think._

"Thaaaank you, horsie!" Gwen sang, slinging her arms around Owen's neck.

"Shut up," he said, shrugging her off. He grabbed one of her arms as he turned and raised it above her head.

"Ow!" Gwen cried, crumpling. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, no fair, let go!"

He let go, and she glared at him, massaging away the phantom pain in her shoulder from her absent wings. Owen just smirked and went back to fixing up his equipment that had been upset during Sparkle's energy wave; a great deal of it had gotten covered in strawberry jam.

Ianto came in from upstairs, bearing mugs of hot coffee. He handed one to Toshiko, who'd been busy checking all the computers for damage. Gwen hopped up to join them, taking her own mug with a smile.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Right as rain," said Gwen. Owen snuck up behind her and pressed into her shoulder blade with his uninjured hand. She arched backwards in surprise.

"Owowowowow!" she said. She glared back at the doctor. "Just a little sore."

"What about you, Ianto?" Toshiko asked.

Ianto smiled at her. "Just fine," he said, "All things considered." He winced as Owen lifted the gauze on his arm, though.

"Everything's taken care of, kids!" shouted Jack, leaping up the stairs from the cells. "Sparkle is safely in repair mode, and we'll be sending her back to her home planet in no time. And I'm happy to report that all of Cardiff is officially back to its boring, gray, human-centric self. The last of the changes should fade away by morning."

"I'm looking forward to it," Tosh murmured to herself.

"Why, did something not change back for you?" Owen teased, wiping some drying blood from Ianto's shoulder. "Still got cravings for hay? Your butt still tattooed?"

Toshiko blushed and stared determinedly at her keyboard.

"Oh my god, it is, isn't it?" Gwen laughed.

"You could have waited before changing things back," Ianto said, changing the subject before Gwen and Owen started chasing Tosh around the room to pull down her trousers. "At least until Doctor Horsie'd used his magical healing powers on this sort of thing." He gestured at the bite mark on his shoulder that Owen had started rewrapping.

"Yeah, that would've been nice," agreed Gwen.

"I think you'll manage," Jack teased, stepping up behind her and massaging her shoulders. She moaned in delight, leaning back into his touch and making Ianto's and Owen's eyebrows shoot up. Owen smirked, and Toshiko blushed even deeper.

"Ooh, you have no idea how much I missed hands," Gwen said, her eyes closed.

"That reminds me," Ianto said, "I found your wedding ring on the stairs. You must have dropped it when we… changed."

"Oh!" said Gwen, and she stepped away from Jack to take the ring from him. "Thank you, Ianto!"

"Spoilsport," Owen muttered as he taped the bandage back in place.

"If that's all then, I think I've had enough excitement for the day." Gwen kept going, grabbing her jacket off her chair and heading for the door. "Rhys is going to want to tell me all about his robots, I'm sure."

Jack grinned, grabbing his coffee off Toshiko's desk. "Sure, go home. We all did a good job today, I think. We wouldn't have gotten through if we didn't all do our part. I - "

"Jack," Ianto cut in, gaping at him in disbelief. "You are not trying to put some sort of moral at the end of all this."

Jack blinked at him. "I was just saying -"

"You _were_," Owen put in. "You were going to say something stupid like we all used our unique abilities as a team to… defeat the evil, or something."

Jack pouted, crossing his arms and leaning back on the desk. "Well, didn't we?"

"I mostly ran after all the rest of you and did nothing," Toshiko said. "I mean it's not a very effective moral if it doesn't apply to everybody, is it?"

"And it's not like I can normally just fix mortal wounds on a whim, like some kind of medical deus ex machina," said Owen. "It's not any kind of talent, it was a one-time thing."

"It still counts!" Jack said. "Why are you so determined to ruin this?"

"I can't normally fly, either," said Gwen. "And what the hell does flying have to do with a heart and a gun, anyway? From the cutie mark you'd think I'd've killed someone. Or… loved someone. …To death."

"Was I supposed to do something with coffee?"

"I couldn't even get anywhere near a computer with hooves…"

"Okay okay, I get it!" Jack said in exasperation. "No morals, no special messages for the kids at home. Just… get out of here, all of you. Go enjoy your nice mundane lives."

Gwen waited for Tosh to join her in the lift, and Owen followed soon after. Ianto lingered, putting the mugs back in the kitchen and picking up odds and ends while Jack fiddled around in his office. He waited for Jack to get off the phone, then stepped in to join him.

"Who was that?"

Jack glanced up at him. "Just working out a cover story. The papers seem to be going with virtual reality testing gone wrong - not all that far from the truth, actually, but I wonder if it's a little far fetched for this time period."

"If the papers are already saying it, we could just let it play out, just tweak the details."

"I suppose we could get lucky," said Jack, and he leaned back in his chair. "Was there something you wanted?"

"Nothing in particular," Ianto said with shrug. "Just wondering how long the aftereffects are going to last. Myfanwy's still coughing up smoke."

"Not too long. Probably no longer than a day, I'm sure. It's a pity, I'd kind of wanted to see Tosh's tattoo."

"Hmm," Ianto agreed. "I was more wondering if you were still feeling horny."

Jack grinned. "Not any more than usual, I think," he said. "Care to double check?"

~~Illustration 


End file.
